New Flooring - Woo Hoo!

We got new flooring in and I love it! (We paid an installer to do it, so it really only took one day of hiding in the basement.) I'm SO excited to not have carpet in the dining area finally. When we pulled up the old carpet we got a surprise and found some hideously dated vinyl underneath. It was kind of fun. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the kitchen cabinets/counter top, get a new chandelier, new ceiling fan, new living room furniture, new dining room set . . .

Princess Abby

Abby got the chance to be a princess a couple of weeks ago. It was a fun event where all proceeds go to a charity that benefits some needy people in Kenya. (http://www.inourownquietway.com). Abby started out by having her hair done by Snow White. I obviously don't fix Abby's hair enough because she thought it took WAY too long to fix.

Abby had tea with the mad hatter and really enjoyed some one-on-one attention from him. She also revealed her destiny by removing the sword from the stone! She thought it was pretty funny when I said we needed to start calling her wart now.

Abby helped followed a fairy around and helped various princesses find their prince. She learned to curtsy with Rapunzel and helped clue the prince in that a kiss was the only way to wake a sleeping princess.


Maleficent came swooping in to break up the party and the girls joined hands and chanted "Princesses Unite!" to weaken Maleficent and allow the good fairy to defeat her. Abby was SO proud of herself.


Since they did such a wonderful job at saving the princesses and defeating the evil fairy they were able to become true princesses themselves. All the little princesses were invited to a ball to celebrate. The princes and princesses they had united did a special dance for the girls and then Abby got to dance with Prince Charming! She was so happy to dance with the prince. I'm afraid she likes boys a little too much for a five year old!



After the ball the girls could meet the princes and princesses and take pictures with them. Abby wasn't very interested in taking pictures. She wanted to get back outside to see who else there was to see and maybe buy a treat or something.




It started to rain when we were inside at the ball. Abby found Aladdin and Jasmine trying to stay dry. We also found Ariel - who didn't seem to completely enjoy getting wet despite being a mermaid.



I got Abby to take one last picture sitting in the carriage. She would have stayed all day long if she could, but we couldn't handle that much rain!


All in all, Abby had a fabulous time. Tom is usually the one to have time alone with Abby and I was glad to get a chance to do it this time. He is probably still her favorite to go on dates with, but at least I can be her princess buddy!

Preschool Graduation

*WARNING* This post is pretty much for my benefit only. You know, a journaling kind of thing.

Abby had a ton of fun in preschool this year. She is extremely social, so it was a great opportunity for her to get out of the house and play with other kids. She also learned her numbers and her lower case letters a lot better. She also memorized a song or poem for each month during class and amazed me with her skills. She loves to sing them and put funny emphasis on different parts of the songs.

The had a cute little graduation where they showed us their poems/songs and demonstrated their new knowledge. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries at the beginning, so I did most of the picture taking with my cell phone. Since I didn't have a real camera I didn't get any great shots of her posing with her teacher or the other kids. I did get a few fun ones though.

You can see how much taller Abby is than the other kids in class. To give them a little credit, she is about a year older than most of them.

Here's Alice making it hard for me to get any good pictures.

Here's Sophie being distracted by the cell phone. She was not particularly enthralled by the graduation program. (It only lasted about 15 minutes, she lasted about 2 minutes.)
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Here's Abby's November poem recitation (plus some other stuff of some other kid). Pardon the quality, I don't claim to have any talent as far as my cinematography skills are concerned. I also freely blame Alice for making doing most things tricky.

The kids seemed to enjoy playing outside in the sandbox the most. I know it was Sophie's highlight of the day.

Newest addition

My little brother AJ and his wife JoAnna welcomed their baby girl into the world on May 22nd. We helped watch their son Jared while they were at the hospital and the kids had a blast. It's fun to see Jared and Sophie hang out together. They are definitely the right speed for each other! Neither kid slept much since they played musical beds for quite a while before finally crashing, but they had plenty of energy the next day to play.



Jared had a LONG day with no nap (I did try) but he was still excited to meet his new baby sister and see his mom and dad again. Aren't they cute?


Abby got to hold Ember in the hospital - one of the priveleges of being a big girl :) We're excited to have Ember in our family! She'll be a fun cousin for Alice to have since they are only 3 1/2 months apart.

Faith

I have lots of things to post (Abby's pre-school graduation, the Princess Festival, my new niece . . .) , but I'll just do a short post for now. About a week and a half ago I decided I should work on my Personal Progress stuff in Young Women's since I am in the presidency. I haven't been very good about getting my girls to work on their goals, so I thought if I was working on it I'd be better at helping them. I started at the beginning - so I'm on Faith #1. I read some scriptures, some Conference talks, and now I'm supposed to pray morning and night for two weeks - then, of course, record it in my journal. It's all about increasing your faith.

Some amazing things have been accomplished through faith. So, I prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to increase my faith. Well, it looks like he decided to help me out by throwing a trial at me. I suppose I did ask for it! Tom came home on Friday and told me he had lost his job. The company is having serious financial issues and they decided to let three of the guys go in his department. I know that everything will turn out fine.

I am SO grateful to have a good job that is so flexible with me. They said I could go back to full time and start getting benefits again next week. As far as I can tell, they are also going to allow me to continue to work from home. Things will work out great, and I'm hoping Tom will get a wonderful job which enables me to eventually quit my job and focus more on the kids. We'll see. I suppose I've learned my lesson now, though. Be careful what you ask for because you really might get it!